As I grew up my bedroom was filled with all sorts of debris and things that would interest young growing boys in the 1960’s. This included scale plastic models, and figurines.

Wall posters. Some of which were blacklight posters on black velvet.

Old bottles that I collected, that seemed to decorate every nook and cranny of my bedroom.

My collection of record albums. All in a wooden egg crates.

My treasured collection of science fiction paperbacks… many of which were short story anthologies.

My Doc Savage collection.

And miscellaneous stuff, which included military surplus. Clothing… often scattered about. A painting kit. A microscope… and a mortar and pestle.

And other things of questionable utility, but things which I (as a boy) found cool and interesting. Such as my Major Matt Mason figurines…

And then there was my great grandfather’s sword. This was a cavalry sword from one of the “Polish Resistance” groups that relocated in the United States after Germany annexed Poland. It had a long hilt and was really cool. As a boy, both my brother and myself would take it out and ohhh and ahhhh about this sword.

My brother has it now.

It was one of those things that I muse about from time to time. Interesting trivia, from days long gone. I wonder what the sword would say if it could talk…?

I wonder.

Today…

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What are things you shouldn’t do in life?

1. Smoke. Seriously, I did it for 32 years. It costs a fortune in cash and even more in quality of life. There is no positive to smoking.
2. Judge people on looks. I have friends across the “scale of looks” from gorgeous to scary and I love them all for their individual personalities. Looks are fleeting, love is not. Friends are the best asset you can have in life.
3. Eat a crap diet. I’m overweight and just diabetic. I’ve loved pizza, chips and crisps (fries and chips for USA people) all my life but they’ve ruined my body and health.
4. Argue with people who live in echo Chambers. I still do this and it’s utterly pointless. You cannot reason people out of a position they did not reason themselves into.
5. Procrastinate. If you have time to do it, then do it. Everything you put off for another day builds up to a backlog. Get it done now and there is less pressure on you tomorrow. This lowers stress hugely.

What is your best “one time my dad … ” story?

My dad was a workaholic and we didn’t get to spend much time with him. One day my mother was sick and couldn’t handle my brother and I, trapped in the house with her, on a winter day, rough housing around the house. So my dad took the day off work, loaded us up in the car and started driving. I’m not sure if he planned anything or not, but we drove about 90 miles to the badlands, which were at a much lower elevation. It was December and there was no snow in the badlands. My brother and I went nuts running and playing, without winter jackets, on bare ground. He had made a stop at KFC and we had a picnic, and didn’t get home until after dark.. It was an awesome day, dad laughed and smiled a lot. My brother and I were worn out, and didn’t bother our mother when we got home.

30 years later, shortly after he had retired. I invited him to come fishing with me, and he said “You bet” and we were on our way. We had an awesome day. I bought KFC and we had a picnic.

He unexpectedly died three months later.

After he died, my mother said that in the months after our fishing trip, all his friends got sick and tired of him telling the story of going fishing with his son. He never stopped talking about it.

Obviously I have never forgotten the time he took us to play in the badlands. It was what inspired me to ask him to go fishing. Its been over 60 years since he loaded us in the car, and I still tear up thinking about it.

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What was the moment you realized that life had passed you by?

My husband and I have been married 50 years. We did not have children, and are each other’s very best friend. Last July, he had a triple by-pass and caught a serious staph infection at the hospital.

It is the end of 2023 now and he is strapped to intravenous pumps receiving 6 weeks of antibiotics because the infection is now in his chest bones.

He can no longer go out for walks in the country with me or do much of anything. He is all bent over like an ancient person, and has no energy at all. He has been getting progressively hard of hearing for the last 2 years but refuses to get a hearing aide, (male pride or denial, I think).

The other night, we were watching a movie and I had to constantly repeat lines that the characters said to each other so he could follow the plot.

At one point in the movie, I turned to him and asked him a question about what he thought of the plot.

He nodded and said “Yes”. When I realized that he was faking and actually could not hear me, it was like I suddenly realized that he was not really there sharing the movie with me. He could no longer hear me.

I felt SO alone, and miserable.

And when I thought about who I could call, what friend I had who could provide some support, I knew I could not be disloyal and criticize him, with all his health problems which are making him semi-absent, I felt totally alone in the world.

I regret not having more of my own friends, just for myself, who do not know him. And I realized that at 74, he is probably not going to improve- it is the beginning of the downhill slide for both of us.

Up until this year, I felt like we both had many miles left- now the reality has set in.

What was the best April Fool’s prank played on you/you played on someone else?

Didn’t happen to me but my friends played this April fools on some kids from another class. We were all in 5th grade, and around that time a lot of kids were getting phones. (A lot of them were iPhones.) My two friends, let’s called them Lena and Eve. They weren’t the type to brag about what type of phone they had, or make a bit deal about it. they kind of kept a down low about if they had phones or not. Only close friends of them knew that they were phone-less.

The prank was to tell the girls in the other 5th grade, girls who had their phones and were unhappy that they couldn’t use them during lunch or recess. Lena and Eve had told them, that today our teachers (5th grade teachers) had allowed them to use their phones in class. The reason why they weren’t using them at lunch was because they were worried that the teacher who administered recess might not be okay with them using their phones. They had even made a note, in handwriting similar to the teacher’s to make it seem realistic.

At first the other girls were skeptical and thought they were lying. What really came into play was at the end of recess, Eve and Lena had been able to get one of our 5th grade teachers, to tell the girls that they were pranking. That what Eve and Lena had said was true.

It’s was really funny when the next day, Lena and Eve had told them that they didn’t have phones or that the teacher would give permission for anyone to use their phone’s in class. Looking back it was silly, but well executed, which helped fool the other girls.

(I was in on, it. They had wanted me to join in, but at the time many people knew I didn’t have a phone. And that my parents weren’t planning on getting me a phone anytime soon.)

What was the most catastrophic bet ever taken?

It doesn’t even sound real. That’s how dumb it was.

It was October 20th, 1986. The story of Aeroflot Flight 6502 began in the cockpit. An argument broke out between the co pilot and the pilot over flying skills. The captain insisted he could land a plane easy in zero visibility, without the autopilot they were using.

It then escalated into a full bet, the pilot saying he could land the plane blindfolded. The copilot accepted the bet, a bet which – if he won — would spell his own death. (Source: 32 Years Ago an Aeroflot Pilot Bet He Could Land an Airplane Blind. Leff, Gary)

The plane descended, the window covered with curtains. As multiple alarms went off, the plane continued to descend.

Then–the plane touched down on the runway at 280 km/hour.

The plane immediately flipped, burst into flames, exploding, and eventually sliding to a stand still.

70 people were killed in the accident, including the copilot.

The main pilot survived. And somehow only got a 15 year sentence, which was eventually reduced to 6. Which is equally baffling.

Human stupidity knows no bounds.

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Have you ever witnessed a judge go completely ballistic and “lose it” in court?

Yes – at my divorce hearing from my second wife

(Yes, I have been married and divorced three times. Wife #1 and I divorced primarily over her gambling addiction and Wife #3 and I divorced after less than a year of marriage amicably because we realized we both had made a mistake. We have remained friends since our divorce)

I sued my second wife (we will call her “Mary” though it is not her actual name) for divorce because of infidelity. I was able to determine and prove that Mary was continuing to have sexual relations during our brief marriage with the woman who had been her lover before we had met (she eventually married her girlfriend after our divorce when Massachusetts allowed for same-sex marriages). I was able to present a witness who testified that Mary had told her that she married me as a “beard” to improve her promotion opportunities at her company.

When we were in court before the judge, the judge, a Black woman, informed us that she was granting the divorce but she was not granting Mary the life-time alimony that Mary had requested. The judge also said that not only was she not granting Mary any alimony, since Mary made substantially more money than I did, she had considered having Mary pay me alimony.

Mary lost it, yelled at the judge that she wanted to kill the judge and me because since the judge was a woman, she should have taken her side and made me pay alimony. The judge, in no uncertain and quite colorful language, threw Mary in jail for 30 days for contempt and issued court orders of protection that Mary could not come within 100 yards of either the judge or me or she would end up back in jail.

I have not seen or heard from Mary in over 25 years – good riddance.

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What is the most heart-wrenching thing you have ever heard?

When he was around 5-6 years old, my brother—who is four years younger to me—had his legs suddenly go numb one night. What followed next was one of the hardest ordeals of my parents’ life. Months passed with them meeting various doctors, visiting different hospitals, knocking at the doorstep of every possible religious shrine—all the time with my kid brother in their arms, since he wasn’t able to walk on his own anymore. We were also buried under debts during this time.

There were doubts of permanent paralysis—the very mention of which was enough to break us down. From finding it immensely painful to walk, to not being able to get up on his own, and to not being able to stand at all, his problem was worsening by the day. Most surprisingly, all this while, he was as strong as, perhaps, only children can be in such difficult times.

During this period, it was not unusual for my mother to have sudden breakdowns. Once, she burst into tears while watching him playing joyfully. He wiped off her tears, and said*,

Don’t cry, mummy. See, I can stand and even run on my own!

Saying this, he tried to get up, stood on shivering legs for just about a few microseconds, and fell down—only to be safely caught in the arms of my mom, who hugged him dearly and cried some more.

This happens to be the most heart-wrenching thing that I have ever heard, but also a powerful one for the simple fact that it was a little child—my own kid brother—teaching us what life is all about—HOPE, in the direst of situations, among the most impossible questions, and during the most unimaginable tribulations.

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P.S: The problem was finally diagnosed and treated correctly by one doctor who was as-if a Godsend in our life. Wrong treatment of a viral fever had left both the legs of my brother infected with the virus. Although it left him physically extremely weak for most part of his childhood, he plays pretty good Football and Cricket today. Touchwood.

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*Translated into English, originally said in Hindi

P.S: A number of people have messaged me sharing instances of children of their relatives/friends facing the same medical problem, asking if I could provide the doctor’s details. It breaks my heart but as much as I would like to help, I can’t. This incident is around 20 years old. My parents happened to meet him on their visit to the Kalavati hospital, no idea about his whereabouts now.

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What is the strangest way you found out a friend was wealthy?

Oh that’s easy imagine meeting a guy in college. You two barely have food to eat. You work part time with him to put together to pay the bills. Then you start complaining about student loans, and hopefully your salary is going to be enough to pay your student loans after graduation.

You go clubbing with the guy. Paid his drinks a couple times. Laugh at him for his card declining because he could not pay a 22$ drink for the cute blonde he’s flirting with at the bar.

You graduate. Stuck in an 8 hour job. Two plus hour commutes, trying to climb higher in your career. The guy you used to see every day, now you only see him once a week for drinks.

8 years goes by and on his 30th birthday he asks you to come drink with the guys but he wants to pick you up. You go outside waiting for him for 30 minutes and you can’t seem to find his Toyota Corolla, but a bmw parked suspiciously across the street. You think he’s stuck in traffic?

Then finally you hear him yelling at you from the bmw.

Oh shit? Did your fiancé let you spend the down payment you were saving for the house to get a new car?

Nope… I’m 30. My trust fund is accessible now, he says calmly while you wonder to yourself… what the hell just happened?

What is an experience you had at a car dealership you’ll never forget?

My mother had moved, and her new garage was smaller than her old, and causing her a lot of stress.

So she decided to give her car to my brother, and buy a newer smaller one.

We went to the dealership that my dad had always used, when he was still alive. We were looking at a 1 year old lease return, we took it for a test drive and my mother felt it would fit in the garage just fine.

We went into make a deal, and got a pretty reasonable deal. Mom signed the contract, and went to stand up, and almost fell over. I thought it was just from sitting too long. We went to the door, and her old car, was parked right in front of the door. She asked, where is the car, then, where are we. I drove her straight to the hospital, and they said she had a small stroke, she then had a larger one, before we left the hospital, and she never left the hospital alive.

I went back to the dealership to explain what had happened, and stop the transaction. I looked at Mom’s signature on the contract, and it was illegible.

The dealership refused to cancel the sale, and told me that they would charge storage fees, if I didn’t get the car off the lot soon.

There was a local TV show, that covered issues like this, so I emailed them, and never heard a thing back.

We ended up selling it privately for a few thousand dollars less than we had paid for it.

A week later the show called and wanted to do a piece on it, apparently, the guy had been on a vacation. I told him that it was too late.

I told everyone I knew to never use that dealership again. I have no idea if this had any effect.

What was totally acceptable in the US Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force 50 years ago and isn’t now?

Smoking cigarettes. I was on a ship for three years in the late ‘60s. Cigarettes sold for $1 a carton, while at sea. I worked in CIC, that dark room with all the electronic gear and plotting devices behind the bridge. The compartment was about 24 x 40. We’d normally have around eight enlisted and at least one officer on watch. During exercises like Sea and Anchor Detail, Vertical Replenishment, Gunfire Support, General Quarters, etc. there were around 30 people in the compartment. I’d guess that at least three quarters of the people smoked cigarettes. We had good air handlers and air conditioning, but there was a permanent haze from the smoke. Every position had an cylindrical ash tray mounted onto the gear.

I am told US Navy ships are non smoking now, with a small area set aside for those who still smoke. This, to me, is a major change for the good.

What is the best thing you saw someone do when they got fired from their job?

Technically I was “laid off,” not fired, after 31 years at the company. I was only working part time (10 hours/week), and was planning to retire fully in a year or two. Instead, I got laid off. They paid me almost a full year’s salary and gave me over a year of medical and other benefits. I collected unemployment for the next year and because of a legal action by my state against the bank that held my mortgage (for deceiving customers on mortgage loans), the bank had to write off my mortgage payment each month that I was unemployed (not deferred, not suspended—canceled).

So when I was told I was laid off, and the salary/benefits package I would receive, I immediately bought a bottle of wine, gave it to the head of HR, thanked him profusely, and left. That year was far and away the best one (financially) that I ever had. And to top it off, I had gotten divorced a year earlier. With all my free time and lack of financial concerns, I had time to date. I met a wonderful woman, and we have been together almost thirteen years now.

What is the most offensive thing someone has ever asked you?

We lived in Los Angeles for many years and had gorgeous offices overlooking the Santa Monica pier. There was an earthquake that damaged the building and we decided to go south . . . closer to where one of our employees lived. Yes, Long Beach. This was good for our business as we needed to be close to a Post Office and we located a couple of miles from the main PO. The little 4 office building we went into happened to be 5 minutes from the central post office and we gained an hour or two extra work time. And, it seemed the wife of the owner belonged to the Long Beach Cancer League. They invited me to join; so of course I did.

At their gala this snooty man walked up to me and touched my arm and said “oh, velour” in a disdained tone. So I matched his tone and replied “Yes. This is LONG BEACH. I reserve the velvet for New York and L.A.”

And YES, I gave him back a withering look.

When did you realize your parent was a total badass?

My mother was extremely mentally abusive and neglectful. My parents had divorced when I was 7, yet my mom was so manipulative that she was able to get shared custody of me and my 4 siblings. For the most part I spent one week with her and then one week with my dad. When we’d be at my dads house, he would try to undo what my mother had done over the week we were there. He gave us love, took us to do things, fed us home cooked meals every day.

After we got a bit older we were allowed to choose which parent we stayed with and when. I think that age was 12 at the time(when you got to make the choice by law), so my oldest sister chose to stay with my mom full time because my mom so manipulative, she would reward her for staying with her, with treats and things none of the rest of us got. My second older sister made the same decision for the same reasons, plus my step-dad favorited her and she got anything she could ever want. (he did unimaginable things to her when she started staying there but that’s a story for another time).

When I got to choose, I decided I wanted to spend exactly equal amounts of time with each parent because I wanted everything to be fair. But my mom would poison our minds against my dad, saying he did all these things he didn’t do, trying to make him look bad to everyone. So eventually I started staying with my mom more, also because of the rewards.

When I was 13, it came out what my step-dad had been doing to my sister. He was arrested immediately. My sister did a recorded phone call with the police and talked to him about it and he confirmed everything thinking it was only her on the phone. There was proof. And my mom said my sister was lying, sided with my step-dad, and never really visited us when the court said we were not allowed to go back to her house, she had to bring our stuff to us(which she never did).

After all of that BS, we were all living with my dad and things got so much better so fast. We weren’t stuck with my moms and my step-dads abuse. My dad loved us and took care of us, got us in therapy, everything.

My mom decided to follow my step-dad to a prison 7 hours away from us, leaving us all behind, right after my 14th birthday. I haven’t seen or talked to her since(and I’m 23 now).

My dad took all 5 of us, loved us, fed us, did things with us, spent time with us. He became the mom we never had and the dad he always wanted to be. Took on making meals for 5 hungry teenagers, taking us to sports, appointments, things with friends, things with him. He stepped all the way up and became one super parent, and we never felt like we were missing anything because we were finally free from my moms and step-dads abuse.

He raised us all by himself, even after most of us had chose to leave him and stay with our mom. When she abandoned us, he was there. He took care of us and he did it with grace.

I’m pretty sure that makes him QUITE bad ass.

What role do semiconductors play in China’s military capabilities, and why is the U.S. concerned about their use in China’s military?

Other than theater-wide air defense such as the S-400/S-500, the Chinese military industry is completely indigenous, down to the chips and engine oil.

Note this includes China’s space-going rockets, and its satellite constellation.

Beidou, for example, provides global positioning coverage and has a chinese-built atomic clock at its core. It is completely indigenous in design and build.

The newer Chinese aircraft from helicopters to transports to 5G stealth fighters are powered by indigenous rather than Russian engines.

In other words, China does not depend on foreign suppliers/components to fight a war, because the Chinese economy is capable of supplying almost everything. After all, China has the most complete industrial supply chain of any country.

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What does Huawei have to do with China’s weapons? Very little.

What does Nvidia have to do with China’s weapons? Very little.

The American sanctions/restrictions are commercial in nature and aimed squarely at disrupting/slowing down Chinese tech. Huawei’s 90% downturn in mobile shipment helped increase Apple’s market share over the past 3–4 years, until the emergence of the Mate 60 reversed the swing.

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Even in AI, Nvidia hasn’t been slapped with hard bans, because China is one of its biggest markets. If it was truly a military issue, no American chipmaker would be allowed to do business with China, so this is just a convenient excuse, not too different from how garlic has been framed as a NATIONAL SECURITY ISSUE.

What is the lowest probability event you have personally witnessed?

I was working in Manhattan. I got a call from my kid’s school that he wasn’t feeling well and had to go pick him up. I had just finished developing a CD-based training program (this is early 90s, before this stuff was done online). On my way out, my assistant told me the CD master had just arrived and gave me a little plastic bag with the CD in it. I was in a hurry to leave and figured I could drop off the CD at home with my kid before returning to work.

Getting around Manhattan basically means getting into and out of yellow cabs. It’s pretty easy to find one.

Typical New York street

I catch a cab to my kid’s school. About 15 minutes later, I get dropped off. I greet my little one in the headmaster’s office and tell him we’re off to the doctor’s. As I’m waving down a taxi with my kid’s hand in mine, I realize I don’t have the CD bag. We go back into the school and it’s not there. Nobody remembered seeing me with a bag and, frankly, I didn’t remember having it in hand when I walked into the school. Oh, well, I thought, that was stupid. This was before Uber where you could call your ride to check on the back seat. This was, in fact, before cell phones. The bag and CD were gone.

I refocused on getting my kid to the doctor. Got him checked out. Got into another cab to go a nearby pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Walked home and dropped off my kid off with his nanny who was waiting there. All this time I was hopeful they would be able to reproduce the CD master, wondering how long it might take, if it might delay the project, if I should tell my boss, etc.

I wave down a cab to go back to my office. While I’m thinking about all these things I see a bag on the floor. I pick it up and pull out my CD.

My assistant sees me walking in with the bag. “How is your baby? I thought you were dropping that off at home.”

“Kid is fine. Oh, the CD, yeah…” I figured she wouldn’t believe me if it told her the truth.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea S2E22 “The Death Ship” Full Restored

https://youtu.be/DGoLBu_Hd0Q

Why are some guys so disrespectful towards good-looking girls? They treat them like an object. How do they manage to get girlfriends?

You ever meet a stunningly beautiful woman who dates asshole after asshole?

I know I have met plenty of them. I even dated a few, when I was that asshole.

When you stop and think about it, it makes absolutely no sense, right?

A really beautiful woman will have LOTS AND LOTS of options. So there must be some successful, confident and charming men who are also kind and caring, right?

It would only make sense that those kinds of guys would pursue her too, so why does she keep dating those assholes?

As I started to understand myself better, it became clear to me why that is.

Some women are wildly attracted to emotionally distant, disrespectful, scumbags.

However, they didn’t wake up one day and decide “hey, who is the worst kind of person I can be in love with?”

No, this likely started very early in their childhood where they had very poor relationships with their parents, family and loved ones.

Their mother and/or father, conscious of it or not, modeled a type of person that is emotionally distant, disrespectful, inconsistent, and sometimes loving.

It conditioned her to believe that “this is what someone who is going to take care of me looks like.”

Since every child absolutely needs love and affection, the lack of it will drive her to desperately try to win their approval and attention to get it.

She will grow up to repeat this pattern with every relationship she develops.

Every time she meets a man who is dismissive, emotionally distant, disrespectful and unloving it triggers a deep desire in her to win that man over.

Every time he does show a bit of affection, she will feel deep satisfaction, feeling like she finally won the love she could never get before.

She feels she is finally enough.

She will believe that is what it means to be “in love” with someone.

It’s like being on drugs. Every time he doesn’t care she withdraws, every time he shows some love, she feels that euphoric hit of crack.

It is all about that “high”. A man who is good to her all the time can’t give her that because there is no bottom, he is just consistent, and to her… it is just boring.

She likely wants to want a good guy, but she just doesn’t, because he cannot give her those highs and lows an inconsistent asshole can.

These women aren’t attracted to assholes because he’s more confident, charismatic, or independent.

No, No, No.

It’s because he is exactly what she needs, a drug. A drug like any other for a person who has deep trauma that cannot resolve it on their own.

Best,

Ludwig R.

What is something you have seen a child do or say that shocked you deeply, good or bad?

When my son was about 3 years old, he had a playdate with a friend’s child. We had a lot of playdates with this child. I wasn’t fond on the child nor his parents. He was a little terror and was very violent and mean. They lived on our street and would just show up at our house unexpected and uninvited. Of course, being 3 years old, my son loved having a playmate and, of course, I would allow them to stay.

One afternoon, my husband was home and they suddenly appeared. So, we sat in the livingroom watching the kids play. We had to watch them. The other child would do things destructive or injurous to my child.

The little boy was playing with a very heavy toy with a long handle. He was standing in front of his mother. Suddenly, he reared back and swung the toy as hard as he could and whacked my son in the head with it. Then, he laughed and laughed as I tried to ensure my son was not dead or unconscious! His mother just laughed and said “Hey… watch it there now.”.

My husband had his fill. He jumped up and headed toward the child and his mother. He was furious and it was obvious someone was going to get a spanking… either the child or his mother! His mother grabbed him and ran out the door as fast as she could. They never came back. Basically because the next time they showed up, my husband met them at the door and told them they weren’t welcome.

What is the strangest medical thing that has happened to you?

I was on a European trip when I fell ill with cold and shivering. The next morning I felt I had experienced food poisoning, but was able to drive back to the base site (700 Km) the next day and rest up for a day for the fight back to Canada. Arrived in Toronto 8 hours later and picked up by a friend who drove me home but commented on my appearance. I had prebooked an early family doctor appointment for the next day. Got up drove there and was told by the Dr. that I must immediately go to emergency. I explained I had to get the car home and would phone for ambulance immediately. He warned that I might never get home, but I went anyway. Ambulance arrived 15 minutes later and took me to emergency. Booked in and as I was handed back my medical card, I remember putting it in my wallet. Woke up 5 days later with tubes out out of everywhere strapped in the trauma ward. I had collapsed in emergency and essentially “died”. Fortunately I was resuscitated and put on life support. Cause was pneumonia, a complete surprise to me. During blackout no memories, no heavenly visits, nobody told me I needed to “go back”. Saved by 24/7 care and antibiotics. Pneumonia, the silent killer.

What are some psychological facts about one-sided love?

Positive facts:

1. One-sided love – the giving love. It’s basically an unconditional love.
2. You become a fantastic dreamer. You might not even talked to them in real, but in your imagination, what to say!!!
3. Important one it’s not expensive. People who spend hundreds of dollars in relationships at the end fall apart.
4. You develop loyalty, which you may use in your future relationship.
5. You have less expectations which is good in other part of life on growing up.
6. You ‘re protected from potential heartbreak. There is no cheating or betrayal.
7. It makes you emotionally strong individual in the end.

Negative facts:

1. You can’t control someone’s feelings expect yourself.
2. It hurts when they don’t return the feeling as we do. And it hurts like hell.
3. It is basically a unhealthy relationship practice once continued even on knowing it won’t work out.
4. It might bring serious mental issues to you, if you don’t know when to leave it.
5. It is war between your mind and heart, where your heart always lose mostly.

Who was the weirdest classmate that you’ve ever had?

Steve.
Steve was the weirdest classmate I’ve ever met because he was an absolute brilliant genius.

My school was predominantly ages 10-12, but we also had a Community Outreach building on the grounds which housed a school for students of all ages who were disabled.

Steve had Down Syndrome. He was in the Community Outreach classroom for all but one day per week when he joined our class.

Each week the “regular” students were given a list of 50 spelling words and expected to memorize them. Not an easy task. Each week we had the option to complete exercises which earned us “points”. By Friday, week’s end, we needed to have accumulated 50 points to pass that week’s lesson plan.

We had to design a board game, for instance, using each spelling word which might earn us 10 points towards that week’s goal. Writing a story using each word in a sentence might earn us 30 points, and so on.

We needed 50 points.

The only exercise which earned us the “Full Monty” was an oral spelling test given by the teacher while standing in front of the entire class of students as they watched on. A daunting task, to say the least.

Missing one spelling word, you’d flunk the test and lose all your points for the week and need to not only do the previous week’s exercises but the current week’s as well. It could be very easy to fall behind taking the oral exercise.

I attempted it only once. I got 49 words correct and botched the 50th! Boy did I feel stupid.

Now Steve…he was a spelling genius. And had nerves of steel!

Each and every week he’d visit our classroom and stand before our class and challenge the teacher to give him the oral spelling test. 50 words. No errors. He’d earn his 50 points in one go.

Spell “pugnacious” the teacher would intone.

Steve, the ever cool, would begin…p-u-g….NACIOUS! Pugnacious!

And so it went. One after the other. Flawlessly. 50 words. Never a mistake.
Ever. Week after week.

We always gave him a standing ovation. What an accomplishment! He became our mascot. Our hero.

Steve was never bullied on the school yard as you read about today. He had Down’s, but we all recognized something special in him.

He taught us something.

There is often genius and complicated wisdom in the most simple and elegant things in life. That I missed my 49th word is indicative of my life. Something is definitely missing. I admit it.

Yet, Steve nailed each and every spelling test flawlessly until the end of the year. Never missing one letter and never hesitating. He knew in his heart the right letters to say. Perfectly.

We gave him a party. We hugged him. He was our buddy.
We were proud of him.

Sadly, as life went on for the rest of us and as we graduated from Jr. High, then High School, moved on with our lives and out of our small community, Steve was never able to make that transition.

Life is shorter for people with Down Syndrome.

My mother sent me his obituary while I was attending classes in college. I wept as I read they had misspelled his name.

What has your child told you that caused you to call the police?

Several years ago my daughter, about 16 at the time, was talking with one of her friends online. The girl had taken some Oxycontin and started telling my daughter how her vision was going in and out, and she felt like she was going to pass out. I asked about the girl’s parents, but they were not home. By this time the girl was saying that she was scared she had taken too much. I called 911, told them what was going on and gave them her address.

Apparently the parents arrived home at the same time the police and emergency services got there. She was taken, by ambulance, to the hospital. It turned out she was fine. She told my daughter that she hadn’t really taken anything, but was just saying that to see what she would do. I don’t know if that was true or not, but my daughter no longer was friends with her. I’m sure she got into trouble with her parents, and possibly the police, either way.

Update: I told my daughter about this answer, and she told me that they took the girl to the hospital and had to pump her stomach. I just knew that the same type of thing happened several times over the years. She got into many different kinds of drugs. She finally got sober, sadly, after her brother died of a heroin overdose.

Have you ever witnessed an office prank that cost someone their job?

When I first arrived in Thailand, I noticed that women working in banks and government offices changed from their high heels to much more informal, comfy shoes that they kept under their desks.

I had never seen this in American offices. I was fascinated!

The broad range of ‘office’ shoes entertained me during the long waits. Cloth or leather flats were the norm. Most were bejeweled, or brightly colored.

My favs were those worn by a department head at the National Lottery Bureau…fuzzy, orange, Garfield house slippers.

Open-toed shoes were absent as they were considered ‘impolite’ (rubber flipflops were allowed when coming in or going out during rainy season).

I was doing part time teaching for a government university in those days, as were several other foreigners. We all taught twilight classes, leaving the campus well after the Thai professors and staff.

Only the deans had enclosed offices. Everyone else had assigned desks in a huge room.

Gene* (who had been incountry long enough to know better) decided to delve under the desks and put the ‘in office’ shoes on the owners’ desks as a prank after everyone had gone home.

For Thais, shoes are associated with the feet, the lowest part of the body. Traditional Thais take issue if feet are pointed at them or at any revered article. Putting feet on a desk or table is very disrespectful. And, of course, shoes carry germs and dirt.

The staff found no humor in what he had done. The traditionalists were furious and demanded that Gene be dismissed, even deported.

The university Dean did dismiss him but helped him get a job at another government school across town, but with a severe warning.

We never found out why he thought that would be funny.

*not his real name

Do semi-trucks ruin roads?

I won’t lie to you. Yes, my truck at 40 tons puts more wear on the road than the typical family sedan.

However. This truck pays close to $20,000 per year in road use taxes. That goes a long way toward maintaining those roads.

Something else to think about. If your roads were not built to have one of these run down, them. Just how cheap do you think the government would get when building the roads.

My guess is a very thin layer of asphalt or poorly compacted gravel. If your road was built for a 3500-pound car, it would be potholed within 2 years.

Added on April 2nd, 2022:

In light of the firestorm that this seems to have lit. I will add the following.

In many states the road use fees are diverted for other uses, so in light of the fact that road maintenance is being paid for and money also used for bike paths, mass transit projects, parks and such. Is the truck not paying enough or is the car paying too much?

Try looking at it from the opposite view. The states may have plenty of money and rather than raising the truck fees, the standard car fees should be lower.

What is the best case of “You just picked a fight with the wrong person” that you’ve witnessed?

I did not see this myself, but from what I understand about Scotland, I believe it.

Circa 1980, a young redheaded Scottish girl transferred into a local High School. Her family had just moved to Canada from the old country.

For the first few weeks she was the ‘new and exotic’ girl. Guys paid a lot of attention to her.

One guy had a seriously jealous girlfriend who considered herself to be the tough, kickass type.

She approached the lass and told her in no uncertain terms to lay off ‘her boyfriend’, or she’d regret it.

The lass stated that she had not done anything to encourage him, and it wasn’t her fault her boyfriend was straying. Perhaps he was looking for an upgrade?

The tough girl freaked.

“That’s it! After school we’re going to fight! You’re going to get it!”

The lass sighed and calmly said (in a Scottish accent) “All right, fine. Do I bring a knife, or a gun ?”

Tough girl: “What?…”

Lass: “I’m just over from Scotland, and I don’t know your local Canadian traditions for these things. So, knife or gun?”

TG: “Seriously, what…?”

Lass: “Well?”

The tough girl and her friends backed away and gave the ‘crazy lass’ a wide berth from that point on.

What are some common mistakes that tourists make when visiting your country?

Some tourists just don’t realize how wild the National Parks can be.

The Germans were boyfriend/girlfriend + two children (ages, 34, 27, 11, 4). The flew into Los Angeles in 1996 and visited various places in southern California and Las Vegas. They were reported missing when they did not return home. Tracked by credit card usage to Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park (It was July, and the day they were at Furnace Creek, the high temperature was 124 F), a visitors log was found with a signature from the woman stating that they would be driving over Mengel Pass next. They were in a rented minivan; this is Mengel Pass:

An extensive search was launched but no sign of them was found. Then in October, a National Park Service helicopter happened to spot a minivan where no minivan should be. It was the Germans’ vehicle. Three tires were flat, ripped open by the terrain. The van wasn’t even on a road, rough as they are in the area, but had been driven down a wash. Another extensive search was launched, but then called off when no sign of the Germans themselves were found.

Fast-forward 13 years. Two hikers find the bones of two adults. Accompanying IDs reveal them as the man and the woman. Some other scattered bones were found, presumably of the children but never officially identified. They were presumably trekking cross-desert toward a military base (shown on the map in their possession) under the assumption that the base perimeter would be staffed. But spanning more than a million acres, most of the base is empty desert and would have offered no chance as salvation.

The National Parks are great, and it doesn’t take more than a modicum of common sense to enjoy them. I’ve personally coaxed rental vehicles down moderately rough roads in DVNP (but I would never try Mengel Pass in any vehicle – it’s just beyond my skill set) and I’ve hiked in the desert. But always prudently, in the right weather, and with the right equipment/supplies (water!). They’re not Disneyland, and if you’re unwise they have a variety of ways of killing you.

What would be the hardest thing(s) for an American to adjust to when moving to a Scandinavian country?

I think for an American, the hardest thing to adjust to might be the limits of a social welfare society.

I’m an American who moved to Denmark more than a decade ago and became a Danish dual citizen, so clearly I like Denmark.

But living in Scandinavia compared to living in the USA involves a lot of limits.

For example, you will probably have a much smaller living space than you are used to in the USA (unless you now live in Manhattan or the Bay Area.) If you could afford a house in the USA, you’ll probably have a smaller one in Scandinavia, or even an apartment. If you used to have an apartment of your own, you’ll probably have a room in an apartment, and at least in Copenhagen, apartments usually don’t have a bathtub. You’ll also have much less “stuff” to put in the apartment; “stuff” is expensive in Scandinavia.

The USA is a consumer society; businesses do whatever they can to please the consumer. That’s not true in Scandinavia, which is an equality-based society. While I can’t speak for Norway or Sweden, customer service is awful in Denmark. Shops really don’t care if you come back or not, and don’t count on returning something you’re dissatisfied with. In restaurants, you’ll either have to serve yourself or wait a while to be served; restaurants are chronically understaffed because wages are so high. The server won’t come back to ask if you’d like another cup of coffee or are happy with your meal. Personal services like nail salons and massage places pretty much don’t exist, or are wildly expensive.

Health care is tax-financed (not free, you will be paying for it with a big cut of every paycheck) and great for short-term, fixable things like a broken leg or a cat bite. Longer-term sicknesses, like chronic fatigue or eating disorders, get less support. Also, there are limits on which pharmaceuticals can be prescribed: many post-op patients get only a combination of Tylenol and Advil for pain, for example. If you’re reliant on one type of pharma, check to make sure its equivalent is available before you move. There are also relatively few preventative care appointments or tests; no annual physical, for example, and psychiatric counseling is limited. If you want it on an ongoing basis, you’ll probably have to pay for it yourself.

EDIT: Many commenters have pointed out that health care can vary in Denmark based on the region you live in, which is a good point. However, there are problems with providing psychiatric care nationwide, in particular where it concerns young people, as the Danish Health Authority itself acknowledges: Selv Sundhedsstyrelsen siger det: Psykisk syge behandles for ringe

(From the center-left national newspaper Poltikken.)

Socially, too, you may run into limits. Many Danes still have the friends they made in kindergarten; university is often where they meet the last of their close adult friends. Work colleagues are not “friends” and beyond their 20s rarely go out and drink beers together. People rarely chat with strangers, or offer to help strangers they see struggling with directions or big boxes or whatever. You may miss the relaxed chattiness and warmth of the USA, particularly during the long Danish winters, where the darkness can be brutal.

And then, of course, the language can be a limit. You’ll find that most people aged 10- 50 or so speak excellent English, but you’ll never really get into the culture until you speak Danish well. Besides, there are always annoying little things that are only in Danish – a voicemail menu, a hairdresser’s website – so will need to make a commitment to learning the (difficult) language if you really want to fit in.

Clearly, there are a lot of positive things about living in Scandinavia. But a lot of Americans approach moving there with the idea of “I’ll get everything I have in the USA, plus more!” That’s not necessarily the case.

More information:

Can you move to Denmark from the USA?

Miso Caramel Chicken Wings

Looking for a bold and exciting new wing recipe? Make our miso caramel chicken wings recipe with sweet and salty miso caramel-teriyaki sauce tossed with crispy air fried chicken wings!

Prep: 20 min | Total: 40 min | Yield: 4 servings

Equipment

• Air Fryer

Ingredients

• 16 chicken wing drumettes (about 2 pounds)
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons white miso
• 3 tablespoons P.F. Chang’s® Home Menu Teriyaki Sauce
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• Sliced green onion (optional)

Instructions

1. Place chicken wings in a large bowl and toss with 1 tablespoon vegetable oil. Sprinkle cornstarch, salt and pepper over wings and toss until well coated.
2. Heat air fryer to 350 degrees F and place wings in a single layer in air fryer basket, working in batches if needed. Cook wings until juices run clear and they are just starting to brown, 10 to 14 minutes, shaking the basket once during cooking.
3. Increase heat to 400 degrees F. Turn wings so the skin side is facing up. Continue air frying wings, in batches if needed, until they are crispy and golden brown, 8 to 12 minutes.
4. While wings are frying, pour sugar and water into a small, heavy-bottom saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Boil until sugar is caramelized and a deep amber color. Do not stir the caramelized sugar.
5. As soon as sugar is caramelized, remove from heat and add butter. Swirl the pan lightly to melt the butter. Whisk in miso, teriyaki sauce, and red pepper flakes. Heat pan over low heat and continue whisking until sugar and miso are smooth. Keep sauce warm until wings are ready.
6. Remove wings from air fryer to a large bowl and pour sauce over; toss to coat. Garnish your miso caramel chicken wings with green onion, if desired, and serve!

What are some things that people who live in places with brutally low temperatures know, that the rest of us don’t?

A few points to add to the other answers:

• Everything is louder when it’s very cold outside. If you live near a major airport, when the temperature drops well below freezing, the low-flying aircraft will sound like they’re landing on your lawn.
• Dog poop steams in the cold. So do sewer grates.
• When you park your car, you need to pull the windshield wipers away from the windshield, lest they freeze to it once the car cools down.
• It can get too cold to snow. There’s a “sweet spot” temperature range for snow. (About 15–35F). Lower than that, and there’s not enough moisture in the air for snow. Higher than that, and it’s slush or rain.
• Thin water pipes in your house that run against an outside wall, like the pipes to your dishwasher or ice maker, will freeze.
• It’s very important that your lips are dry if you want to smoke in the cold. Wet lips will freeze to anything when it’s cold outside, including cigarette butts. You will rip the skin off of your lip if you’re not careful.

Have you ever watched justice be served to a rude airline passenger?

Yes, back in 2006, I was travelling a lot for a major project, at this particular time, England. I can’t remember if it was London or Manchester, but the queue to pre-screen boarding passes was really long and slow.

About 15 – 20 people ahead of me was a couple probably early 30’s. I couldn’t hear exactly what was going on, but there was obviously some tension between the person checking documents and the lady. The exchange of words continued even after their documents were checked, and the lady even came back a couple of times to give the worker more verbal abuse. By the time I was a few people away waiting to have my documents checked, the lady couldn’t leave well enough alone and kept shouting at the worker.

The worker turned to her colleague and said, I don’t have to put up with this abuse. She walked towards the couple and asked for their boarding passes again. After a few moments of discussion, the couple handed them over and the employee simply said “You are not travelling today, please follow me”. The look the man gave to woman was priceless!! About a dozen people started clapping as they walked off with heads hanging low….

The CIA Murder that Exposed MK-ULTRA | The Frank Olson Assassination

November 28th, 1953. New York City. At 2:30 AM the body hit the sidewalk.

A few seconds later, a shower of glass. The doorman of the Statler Hotel yelled to the lobby that there was a jumper. The night manager rushed out and saw him. A man, about 40 years old, lying on the pavement.

He was on his back, wearing only his underwear and blood started to pool around him. 13 stories up, a single window was open; its curtain flapping through broken glass.

The night manager knelt beside the man, whose eyes were open and was somehow still alive. He desperately tried to speak but was choking on blood and couldn’t be understood.

After a minute or two of trying to communicate, the man took a final deep breath and was gone.

Nobody knows for sure what he was trying to say before he died. But one thing is for certain, it was something about the CIA.

Why does society look down on single people?

I don’t know that society ‘looks down’ on single people, but a large chunk definitely seems to feel sorry for single people.

A friend of mine recently decided to end things with her boyfriend. She felt so relieved, as the relationship just wasn’t suiting her.

She said that all (bar one) of the friends she broke the news to said ‘Aww, I’m so sorry.’ It ticked her off. She understood it, but it still raised her hackles a bit.

‘Why are they all feeling bad for me?’ she asked. I did it, because I know I’d prefer being single to being in a relationship that was draining me.’

I learned this lesson myself when I divorced. Everyone said ‘Sorry,’ whilst cocking their heads. This despite the enormous relief I felt over escaping a pressure cooker after many years.

From that time, I vowed I’d never have that reaction when someone tells me about their break-up. My first reaction when they break the news to me is always to ask ‘And how do you feel about this?’, then take it from there, depending on how they answer.

One of the only good responses I got when sharing the news of my divorce was from a mum at my son’s school. Without missing a beat, she said ‘Well, congratulations. Unfortunately for me, my husband and I are still together.’ And her husband was standing right next to her!

All three of us burst out laughing, and it diffused the awkward situation. She totally grasped that getting divorced or being single is not the end of the world.

People act like being single is on par with being stranded on some desert island all by yourself. Like you’re Tom Hanks with only Wilson to keep you from spiralling into madness.

It can be likened somewhat to being on an island, I guess, but it’s one with superb amenities, no stresses, and a pre-approved guest list. That’s not anything to pity.

What did your boss do or say to you that made you quit your job?

I was an experienced hotel maid working at a Motel 6.

I was assigned five or six rooms. I opened the door to the first one, closed it and found the head housekeeper. I knew it would take at the very least, one or even two shifts to clean it. I made her go look at it; she didn’t want to.

Six college students had rented it for the semester. After the first month or so, they refused to let the room be cleaned. They were to do all the work. I have no idea why management would agree, but they had.

The carpet, literally in most areas, was knee deep in old pizza boxes, fast-food containers, empty pop and beer can, popcorn, chips, new and used condoms and unidentifiable debris. The room stunk and my eyes watered.

It took at least two hours before I cleared out enough trash to even start cleaning.

Spilled liquids had saturated the pillows, mattresses and box springs to such an extent that every thing had to be discarded. The shower cutain and room curtains were shredded. There was a huge pile of filthy sheets and towels with clean ones mixed in.

No one had realized the clean linens and towels went in, but dirty ones never came out.

All of the furnishings were broken, stained, burned, vandalized or all of that. Most had to be discarded or replaced; very little was repairable.

Filth coated the lower walls, the ceilings and I’m not going to discuss the bathroom.

I worked 16 hours instead of the usual six and it was still pretty bad. I left a detailed note with the night clerk and a copy taped to the housekeepers door saying what and what not I had done.

The head housekeeper showed her appreciation of all my hard (and it was hard) work the next morning by greeting me with a huge list of everything I had not done and was yelling at me about what an awful maid I was.

I didn’t have to take that abuse. I knew that two maids had called in sick. I didn’t give a single damn and quit right then and there.

Have you ever witnessed something at a wedding that made you think, “you can’t be serious…”?

I went to a Ukrainian Orthodox wedding in Canada. A good friend had converted to Orthodox for his wife.

The ceremony was amazing, the priest chasing him around the altar 3 times, hitting him with his scepter 3 times, etc. Quite a bit more entertaining than your typical wedding, but long and drawn out.

The part that blew me away, and made me say you can’t be serious, was the priest saying, and I am paraphrasing here, as I don’t remember the exact words.

“As a man must obey the will of the lord, the wife must obey the will of the husband”

I thought things like this hadn’t been said for 50 years.

But, to show how little attention people pay, I will relate two incidents.

In between the wedding and the reception, a group of us retired to a nearby bar. At the bar, I said good luck getting Mona to obey Greg, as she is the dominant one in the relationship. Everyone said, they don’t say that at weddings anymore. I asked them if they were at the same wedding I was just at, and quoted the priest.

Then later at the wedding reception, which was held in the church hall, I joked about it with my friend. He said they don’t say that anymore. He called his wife over for verification, and she agreed, and said my memory was flawed. A little later in the reception, the priest was walking by, and I cornered him, and he agreed that is what he had said.

I asked him to confirm that with the Bride and groom. He came over with me and I asked him in front of the couple. They were both stunned. They had been through the rehearsal and the wedding and never heard what they had committed to. Mona finally burst out laughing and said “Good luck with that”

Bud Helps A Virgin | Married With Children

Tiger fathers don’t attack their offspring, how do they know which cubs are theirs? Is it by the scent?

No.

They know which females populate their territories and know which they’ve bred with. It’s that simple. If they find a female w cubs that he NEVER mated with, he will kill them.

What’s interesting is sometimes these fathers actually step up and care for young. There was an instance in India where a mother tiger died (poacher i believe) while her cub was still dependent on her. The father had met her previously & had a good relationship.

Then, after her mom died she was seen with her father briefly at a water hole and then 24/7. He was hunting prey and bringing her to it. Giving her protection, basically taking over the role of her mother. This has never been documented bbefore. Totally unprecedented behavior, as fathers are usually completely dismissive and hands off. At most they come through and meet their offspring, sharing a meal the mother caught. Aka freeloading. Goes to show tigers are individuals with wide ranges of behavior and potential

What was the most chaotic experience you’ve ever seen at a restaurant?

One night some ding dong opened the drain of a deep fat fryer, dumping hot oil onto the floor of the cook’s line.

Fortunately, the fryer was turned off, because a lit deep fat fryer will ignite if there is no oil inside. This happens because the residual oil within the fryer will immediately exceed its flash point and you’ll quickly have a fire on your hands. The guy who did it was planning on cleaning the fryer, which requires it to be drained. The tank drains into a catch pan, which contains a paper filter, and a pump recirculates the filtered oil back into the fryer’s cooking tank. For some reason, the dude had the fryer’s spout aimed at the floor, not at the tank.

The perpetrator of this crime had experience cleaning the fryer, they just weren’t paying attention. As gallons of hot oil hit the floor, they ran, as did everyone else, and the fryer emptied its belly onto the kitchen floor. It was a huge hot sizzling greasy mess that took more than an hour to clean up. We didn’t have any option other than to squeegee the oil into the floor drains, then we wasted dozens of side towels drying the floor. It wasn’t until we had the mess cleaned up that everyone could finish cleaning their stations and go home. There was a lot of anger, and one case of severe embarrassment in the kitchen that night.

Couple Finds Out Their New House Comes With A Cat | The Dodo

What is the most dangerous object that you’ve seen on the road when driving?

It was a very windy day in the late 1980’s. I was driving past the Ford motor works in Halewood, Liverpool. I was on the main dual carriage way.

In front of me was a Mini and in front of that Mini was a flatbed truck carrying planks of wood.

We were heading East out of Liverpool towards Widnes. Traveling at about 60 miles per hour.

I saw a gust of wind begin to lift some of the planks of wood on the truck.

One of the planks actually had enough wind get under it that it rose off the truck, snapped it’s tethers and then launched like a caber end over end back along he carriageway. The plank end landed just in front of the Mini bent and sprang up and over the Mini, the other end of the plank then hit the road just in front of my car and did the same spring up and over my car but twisting it diverted slightly so as it fell behind my car it fell onto the pavement ( sidewalk) running along the car factory perimeter fence.. A box van behind me hit the plank and shattered it into several pieces as it broke on the roadway and kerb.

It was a near miss for what could have been a serious accident.

Were Finns treated fairly in the Russian Empire?

I’ve been drafting this answer forever.

My conclusion is that it cannot be answered because trying to judge the Russian Empire by modern standards will inevitably fail.

Take a look at this picture:

Photo source: Yle News.

Photo credit: Carl Jahn / Finnish Heritage Agency

This is a prisoner from the Finnish Grand Duchy that has been deported to a labor camp in Siberia. On foot.

He’s chained to a cart because he has tried to escape. His head has been half-shaved to brand him as a convict.

We treat prisoners quite differently these days.

---

Russia was never particularly enlightened, but it did, at times, have more ‘European-minded’ leaders. Finns didn’t mind them.

Alexanders I and II could be described as such.

Nicholases I and II (Nikolai) could not.

Finland was granted extensive autonomy by Russian standards. It served Russia’s own interests, but Finns didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. They took it and ran with it.

Things weren’t bad at first. A stronger Finnish identity created a buffer between Russia and its archnemesis, Sweden.

Then Russia caught the nationalist bug itself and the developments in Finland were no longer compatible with where Russia was going. That’s when Russia tried to take it all away and then some.

It was too late. Finns were past the point where they’d accept being subjugated like that again, or even tolerate a so-called benevolent czar.

What was the oddest thing you’ve seen when going to people’s houses for a living?

I was selling very cheap rubbish diy home alarm systems with equally rubbish motion sensors. The company I worked for at the time had some fantastic products, this most certainly was not one of them.

They were so bad I would go to a customer’s house to replace parts with multiple spare parts because the replacement was often faulty too. Argh, I hated that product.

This one day I knocked on the door to be greeted by a very attractive young lady wearing gym clothes. She told me straight up that she was heading to the gym just as soon as her partner arrived. I was told he would arrive imminently and that is how it turned out. However before he returned home I was asked if I would like a glass of water, it was a very hot day and I said yes.

I followed her into the kitchen at her request. She went to the refrigerator and prominently displayed on her refrigerator door were nude photos of her. Several of them. I think they were professionally done and presumed she maybe was a model but I didn’t ask and didn’t even mention the photos. That was something I hadn’t seen before.

Very hot day that because I remember being so very thirsty. Must have had 4 or 5 glasses of water before I finished that job. Yes it was hot and I was thirsty.

That answers the question but that wasn’t even the weirdest part of that call out. The partner strikes up a conversion with me, while I’m working and asked me how well I knew people at my company’s head office. I told him I knew most everyone. He then asked me if I knew such and such which, believe it or not, was my boss. My boss was this guys ex-wife!

I am pretty sure I didn’t blurt out loud, “You traded up nicely!” but I do know I at least thought it very loudly!

That was a weird house call, a very weird day I will never forget.

Banned Beer Commercial – Beer Goggles

Have you ever seen a mass exodus after a respected employee quit or got fired?

This actually happened to me many years ago. I was a property manager of 80 units. My boss and I had a heated exchange and in haste he fired me on the spot. He asked me to stay until he could find a replacement. “Sorry Charlie!” I cleaned out my desk and handed him the keys, and I left the property of my own volition….

I was off-site the rest of the week. My now former boss was blowing up my phone. “Where are you?” then it was, “You are needed in the office?” I ignored his calls. He then messaged me on Facebook and said it was “with great urgency that we talk”. As it turned-out 2 members of the office staff (there were 3 all together) quit! The residents had started a petition to reinstate me – 60-plus signatures in all. He would not cave and subsequently received somewhere around 15 to 20- thirty day notices in effect terminating their leases. Additionally, some of the residents (refused to pay their rent. The community quickly became unstable and increasing hostile towards him. The morning shift manager at Tiger Mart next door to the complex – a tenant of mine, refused him service.….

He offered me my job back. I let him sweat for a day, then accepted and returned to my job. I was never so moved by an experience as I was at that job, not because my boss had given me my job back, but, rather, because the tenants did!

Does free will exist?

As far as I can tell, “free will” simply refers to a lack of self-awareness, and the inability to understand why we make the decisions we make.

And yes, that lack of self-awareness definitely exists.

People make decisions, but they are not quite sure why they made that decision.

For example, people will go into a shop, end up buying a load of useless and overpriced crap that they don’t need and didn’t intend to buy.

If they are unaware of the multitudes of manipulation techniques that are implemented by the shop to achieve that result… then they’ll call that lack of awareness about their decision making process “free will”.

Likewise, people who grow up exposed to religious propaganda, and then end up believing in the religion that they were exposed to, usually lack the self awareness to notice the whole process. And so they’ll call their belief in the propaganda they were exposed to a “choice made by free will”.

Have you ever confronted a thief?

When I was in fourth grade, one of my best friends had his new (2 week old) bike stolen from his backyard. A few days later, we were at a shopping center right near our apartment complex, and there was his bike, chained to a bike rack. We knew it was his bike, not an identical one belonging to someone else, because he had put a sticker on it, and the sticker was still there. We called the police, but the thief got there before the police did. The thief was probably about 4 years older than us, and a pretty big kid. We told him that the bike belonged to my friend, and that we wouldn’t cause any problems if he just gave it back. He insisted that his parents bought him the bike, and it just looked like my friend’s bike. While we were arguing with him, the police arrived. He again insisted that the bike was just an identical one that his parents bought him.

The police asked us if we could prove that it was his stolen bike. The thief was shocked when my friend said “Yes, as soon as I got the bike, I wrote my name and address and phone number on an index card, rolled it up, and put it in the tube of seat. If you take the seat off you’ll find that card.” The thief stood there slack-jawed. The police got a wrench and removed the seat, and sure enough, there was the index card rolled up inside. The policeman handed the bike over to my friend and drove off with the thief to go have a chat with his parents…

Family Feud: Gilligan’s Island Vs. Batman

What is the biggest shock you ever received at a doctor or hospital visit?

I have always thought that “PCP gives you super human strength” was an urban myth, until one night, during my residency.

There was a kind of smaller, skinny young guy that was restrained to the gurney. He was high on PCP and who knows what else. Drug screen had been sent but wasn’t back yet.

He was making such a fuss, in the ER, that they placed him in a small isolation room.

I’ was a resident. The attending was wrinkling up his nose as this guy is yelling all kinds of profanity and threats.

He sent me in to assess the patient.

I told him that I’m not going in there alone.

He told me that the patient is restrained.

“Nope.”

Ok. We’ll go in together.

I step over to the room and knock gently.

“Sir, this is Doctor Boehm. I’d like to come in and talk to you.”

No answer.

I try again.

No answer.

Everything, in there, has gone quiet.

The attending and I exchange glances. Then, he reaches around me and pushes the door open.

My first fleeting impression was a bloody blade, of some sort, coming at my face.

I jumped back and practically fell over the attending physician.

I yell for security, at the top of my lungs.

People come running.

The patient, I kid you not, had some how managed to get on his feet, restrained, with the gurney ON HIS BACK.

He has, some how, ripped open the sharps container. He was trying to attack, anyone with in reach, with a pair of bloody scissors that he found inside.

They finally got him restrained and sedated.

I was shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t stop thinking about how my kids could have lost their mom.

I never went anywhere near an agitated patient, without Security, again.

What have been some of the most difficult buildings to destroy in human history?

Ask any veteran of Stalingrad in WW2 and it would be Pavlov’s house. I have been there to see it after reading about the importance of this building to the battle. It will cause you goosebumps! What a story!

This guy Yakov Pavlov was a Sgt. in the Soviet army and held this position at all costs. The Wehrmacht tried and tried to destroy the building over the course of 58 days and failed. Quite possibly, if this building had fallen, then the battle would have been won by the Nazis. This would have given them access to the fuel supply that they needed and the outcome of WW2 totally changed.

Vasily Chuikov, commanding general of the Soviet forces in Stalingrad, later joked that the Germans lost more men trying to take Pavlov’s House than they did taking Paris.

In the aftermath, captured Nazi maps used during the battle showed that EVEN THE NAZIS called the building “Pavlov’s house”!

What a hero to a heroic people.

MONEY is a PSYOP. How they keep you Working.

What can mainland Chinese, Singaporeans and Hong Kongers learn from the Taiwanese people’s achievement of democracy?

I don’t know what the Chinese Singaporeans, mainlanders and in HK learn from the Taiwanese people’s experience but I can tell you what I, a Malaysian Indian, learnt from it –

1.I would certainly not call it an achievement, since that word implies an end with bigger and better results as well as a greater general good for all the people involved in the process.

2.Democracy as it is practised in Taiwan (and quite a few other places I can think of) is the fastest way of putting the corrupt, the feeble-minded, the easily manipulated and the snake oil salesmen in power.

3.That version of “democracy” seems like the best way to surrender control of an entire region or nation to the elite oligarchy with interests in either arms or other consumer goods.

4.That version of “democracy” is, however, the best and easiest way of convincing the stupid, the brainwashed, the feeble-minded and the generally apathetic that they are enjoying “freedom” while giving up many of the actual rights willingly.

For all the reasons above, I am convinced that the Taiwanese people’s “achievement” of democracy is one of the best and most humane ways of creating, empowering and maintaining a hidden dictator class of ruling elite oligarchs.

What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?

Years ago a girlfriend and I were having lunch on a patio, we had daiquiris, shrimp and fried rice.

She ate all of her fried rice, left all of her shrimp, and ordered a second daiquiri. I asked her if there was something wrong with the shrimp, and she said no, she was sure they were fine, but she was on a diet.

I had observed in the past that she loved her carbs, and would eat carbs instead of healthy things like skinless chicken breast, pork tenderloin , skipjack tuna and shrimp.

So I asked her why she was leaving the lowest calorie thing, eating the higher calorie fried rice, and ordering an even higher calorie drink.

She laughed at me and told me that everyone knew that meat/protein wasn’t healthy and had higher calories than anything else.

The shrimp had roughly half the calories of the same weight fried rice, and less than half the calories of her daiquiri.

How could you go on a diet and not know this?

I never told her how many calories were in her favorite perogies and french fries.

After Chatting With 408 Women And 25 Dates, A Viewer Confirms ONCE AGAIN Why Men Keep Walking Away

Gosh! I am so glad that I am not on the dating scene in the West. China is so refreshingly different.

What should you do if someone parallel parks right up to your bumper and you cannot safely get out of your parking space without hitting their car and you cannot contact the owner to move their car or they refuse to move their car?

My dad had a grate answer. This woman parked her BMW in our driveway whenever she went to the Beauty Parlor. She blocked is so no one could leave until she returned. My dad asked he not to park in our driveway and was ignored. One day he had enough. He went in and got the sugar boll from the table and pored about half on the ground by her gas cap and let the door to the cap open. Then he put a note on her windshield, “THIS IS A REAL SWEET CAR. I BET IT WOULD RUN ON PURE SUGAR.” and went in to watch the fun. An hour later the woman came back and found the note, looked at the ground by her gas cap and called the Police. When they arrived, they pointed out she was on private property and they could do nothing however, they advised her not to risk driving the car with contaminated gas. Have it toed to a garage the tank drained and refilled. Save some of the gas and have it tested to prove it was tampered with and sue. She did. She had to pay the tow truck, the garage to remove and clean than refill the tank after putting it back, pay the lab to test the gas only to find it was never tampered with. She never parked in the driveway again!

Copng and dealing through the harshest times

One of my youtube videos. Only 10 views.

Did you ever get an order from someone who had absolutely no authority over you? What was it and what did you do?

My husband passed away almost 5 years ago. His ex wife had been a pretty much constant source of frustration the 6 years we were together (and they were divorced). She continued to harass me the entire 6 weeks of his hospital stay. At 10:30pm while I was sitting with my husband, her texts started. She told me I better go straight home and start packing. According to her I had 72 hours to vacate our house after my husband died. There was no truth to that. She had no ownership in our home. I simply replied that my lawyers (and they also notified her divorce attorney) had assured me the clause in the final decree promised a $1000 fine and 30 days in jail for any harassment of me. I forwarded that response, along with her threatening texts, to her daughters and each of her “friends” who were harassing me. I also informed her security would throw her out of the funeral if she showed anything but respect. Her harassment pretty much stopped!

Girl Cried As The Shelter Cat Hugged Her Tightly And Wouldn’t Let Her Go

Girl Cried As The Shelter Cat Hugged Her Tightly And Wouldn’t Let Her Go. Rachel, a college student at the time, was volunteering at the shelter. She had been helping animals at the shelter for a long time and was spending her last volunteer day that day.

What’s something you can’t believe you had to explain to another adult?

My ex-mother-in-law had a dishwasher in her kitchen that she never used. It was several years old, but was in like-new condition. It still had the paperwork and a packet of detergent inside that had been provided with the machine.

One evening after dinner at her house, I offered to take care of the dishes and started loading them into the dishwasher.

She heard me and made a beeline for the kitchen, letting me know that in her house all the dishes were to be washed by hand.

I asked why she didn’t like her dishwasher. She was convinced that hand-washed dishes are more sanitary than machine-washed.

She agreed to run a little test. I ran hot water into the sink and asked her to wash a dish in it. She couldn’t because the water was way too hot for her hands.

“The water in your dishwasher gets hotter than this.”

My MIL was in her late-60’s at the time, but she wasn’t too old to learn new tricks. After that, she used her dishwasher regularly and was happy with the time and effort that it saved her.

Girlfriend Brings Up Open Relationship And Has MELTDOWN After Boyfriend Dumps Her Right On The Spot

Quick one. The general idea behind a woman offering an “open relationship” is for her to date and fuck who ever she wants, while the boyfriend / husband sits alone at home watching the kids, dogs and cats.

A man says … “No FUCKING way.”

Who are the people who cross the threshold of despair?

A Japanese girl, streaming live video on YouTube, was roaming in Germany. While walking there (racist) people were harassing her, but the girl did not pay much attention to them. Her innocent grin persisted on camera.

But while she was eating food in a restaurant, an older man started sitting near the girl and making faces like this:

Like this man, another racist person also made faces to tease the girl. Eventually the girl became a little sad because a person passing by had almost dropped her camera.

At the end of the video, a man approaches the girl and apologizes. The man tenderly states that he is ashamed of the behavior of other German people. He looks at the camera and says, “This girl is very nice, and please come to Germany.” The girl melted at seeing this and hugged the person.

Making a foreign guest a character of such harassment goes far beyond the limits of despair.

As a teacher, what is the harshest truth a student has ever taught you?

I had a student who came into my history class and told me how she hated history, hated me, and did not want to be there. She then said I am a black lesbian, EFF YOU whitey. I looked at her the class hearing this was not sure what or how I would react. I smiled and said, so does this mean we are not going to have lunch later. She looked at me as if to say something profound but just shook her head. Silence was deafening for a few minutes. It was our first day of class, I said my job is not to make you love history but my job is to assure that you have a basic historical understanding. I will make a deal with all of you, give me three classes, if you do not like what you are hearing, seeing, reading, or learning drop the class, add another class. But I ask you keep an open mind. We have a class section called stump the prof, its your turn to ask me history classes. It has to be related to American history is the only catch.

She would ask me questions every class and they showed an understanding that I admired. She was not afraid to express herself, she was not polished, she was blunt and to the point. We watched a documentary on the Triangle Coat Factory Fire in the 1900s and said with a sadness in her voice, Prof that could have been me or any of us girls in this class. What she taught me is we all can change and become a better self. Her willingness to see these young dead women in caskets due to neglect made her realize it could have been her. She changed from a angry young woman to a stronger empathetic history lover.

Oh for the ones’ left behind

One of my youtube videos. Only 8 views.

What’s the best nickname you’ve encountered?

Nemo

My husband worked for an LTL trucking company. When he told his work stories, he began to mention a driver called “Nemo.” I didn’t think much of it until he referenced an older story that I knew was about a driver called (I forget his real name*, so let’s say) John, not Nemo.

When I asked, my husband explained that John had earned the nickname “Nemo” and it wasn’t going away any time soon.

Most of the drivers delivered to the same area every day. Familiarity improved delivery times. However, John, on the same route for almost a year, didn’t seem to learn any shortcuts.

They would frequently get calls from customers asking where their delivery was. Dispatch would then call John, asking how close he was to the delivery, and John would respond that he didn’t know because he was lost.

Dispatch would then pull up the GPS, find John’s truck, and give him directions back to the customer. The manager would ask dispatch what they had going on, and hear, “I’m finding Nemo,” so often that soon nobody called him John anymore. He will live forever in our stories as “Nemo.”

* I asked my husband what Nemo’s real name was. He doesn’t remember either! Forever Nemo….

Why is Russia going to make a huge statement with MiG-41 formidable aircraft something the U.S will dream about owning?

Riiiight… The MiG-41 was due to go into service in 2028. Notice I say ‘was’; I gather that most of the more sophisticated components are a little hard to come by now, and that money is also rather tight; Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has almost certainly delayed the MiG-41 by several years, if it hasn’t killed it stone dead. You can’t use looted washing machine circuits in a 6th-generation fighter.

Then there’s Russia’s track record on Wunderwaffen in recent years. The T-14 tank and the Su-57 spring to mind as projects that look great on paper and shiny in parades – and then somehow never quite make it to the front lines in quite the form or quite the numbers or to quite the schedule that were announced.

And the MiG-41 is still a little vague as to what it actually is and does, given that it’s supposedly only a couple of years off production. Is it 6th-generation hypersonic near-space miracle? Or is it a MiG-31 upgrade: a Foxhound with better engines? Meanwhile, Boeing has a physical flight demonstrator of its NGAD programme candidate up and running, and Project Tempest is in development here in the UK, Europe, and Japan.

And nobody – given how Russian equipment has performed in Ukraine – is going to want MiG-41s if they can have either of those, let alone ‘dream about owning’ the MiG.

There is an old Quora proverb: before you ask why, ask if.

Husband and wife interaction in China

One of my youtube videos. Only 12 people viewed it.

Mascarpone Bourbon and Rum Balls

Yield: about 8 dozen balls

Ingredients

Chocolate Mascarpone Bourbon Balls

• 1 (8 ounce) container Crave Brothers Farmstead Classics® Chocolate Mascarpone cheese
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 cup bourbon
• 3 1/2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs (cookie)
• 1 1/2 cups ground pecans
• Optional Toppings: baking cocoa, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate wafer crumbs (cookie), confectioners’ sugar, melted dark chocolate and finely chopped pecans

Mascarpone Rum Balls

• 1 (8 ounce) container Crave Brothers Farmstead Classics® Mascarpone cheese
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/3 cup dark rum
• 1/4 cup eggnog
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
• 1 1/2 cups ground pecans
• Optional Toppings: confectioners’ sugar, gingersnap cookie crumbs, finely chopped pecans and melted white baking chocolate

Instructions

Chocolate Mascarpone Bourbon Balls

1. Beat the mascarpone, confectioners’ sugar and bourbon in a large bowl until smooth. Add chocolate wafer crumbs and pecans; stir until blended. Refrigerate mascarpone mixture, uncovered, overnight.
2. Shape mascarpone mixture into 1 inch balls; roll and coat with toppings as desired.
3. Store covered in the refrigerator.

Mascarpone Rum Balls

1. Beat the mascarpone, confectioners’ sugar, rum, eggnog and cinnamon in a large bowl until smooth. Add gingersnap cookie crumbs and pecans; stir until blended. Refrigerate mascarpone mixture, uncovered, overnight.
2. Shape mascarpone mixture into 1 inch balls; roll and coat with toppings as desired.
3. Store covered in the refrigerator.

Notes

Balls coated with baking cocoa or confectioners’ sugar may need to be coated again before serving.

The balls are best served cold.

U.S. “M2” Money Supply Collapsing Faster than During Great Depression

Nation Hal Turner 17 December 2023

The supply of physical cash money in circulation inside the United States is collapsing fast than it did during the Great Depression.  The chart below, from the Federal Reserve, shows the facts:

It shows M2 money on a year-over-basis is contracting by the most since the 1930s.

M2 is decreasing, every time this happened in the last 150 years there has been a DEPRESSION.  Here’s a chart to prove it:

Mind you, the chart above is from MARCH . . . . it’s gotten worse since then!

As cash is taken out of the economy, the economy runs out of steam and stalls . . . fast.

What followed the Great Depression?

What’s going to follow this economic collapse?

If you answered “world war” you’re correct!

We’re being looted.

Over 50% of the money given to Ukraine is unaccounted for, for instance.

This is the looting stage before the country falls. All planned out.

Has a cop ever said something to you which was completely unexpected?

Yes. I was driving my elderly parents to their apartment. My son was in the front seat. I was pulled over for speeding. It was one of those road that went from 45 to 25 without changing the road or the neighborhood. My parents were fighting in the backseat, my son was telling them to please be quiet. The cop said the usual, “do you know why I pulled you over” My reply was just give me the ticket I have to get these two home as they are driving me crazy. He asked me if I’d mind stepping out of the vehicle. I said no I didn’t mind. Anything to get away from them. He then just talked to me. Told me he understood how fighting elderly parents can grate on a person. He asked if I was on the way to the elderly housing which was about 2 miles down the road. I was and acknowledged it. He said just take a couple of deep breaths. I will talk to you till you feel up to being in the vehicle with them. Just do the speed limit, you are almost there. Then go to Culvers and treat yourself and your son. You both could use it. It took me about ten minutes to calm down. My parents were still fighting but I got them home and took my son and I out for ice cream as ordered. No ticket. He did not even ask for my license and registration.

What is the perfect thing to say when someone is being rude to you?

I have the perfect answer whenever anyone insults you.

“You’re right. What’s your point?”

Kills them every time.

Example: I was parked in the very first spot in front of a high school where I would be teaching night school. I had about a half hour before I needed to head in, so I was reading the news on my phone. A sixteen year old chickeeboo tried to back her car enough in front of mine to somehow claim she was parked legally. But most of her car was over the hash marks that indicted a walkway. Also, because she’d parked so tight against my front bumper, I wouldn’t be able to leave without her moving first. So I strolled up to her car and explained she was parked illegally. She could move about twenty feet ahead to the next legal space. I returned to my car to continue reading.

She didn’t move her car. She sat for a while, probably pondering her killer take down, then popped out and approached my car. She indicated I should roll down my window, which I did.

She said, “Your attitude makes you look old!”

Wow! Zinger! Total destruction… except… not.

I gazed at her calmly and said, “I am old. And you’re still parked illegally. Move your car.”

She flounced back to her car. Pondered whether she should try another killer take down. Then she moved her car.

I enjoyed a night of class knowing I could leave whenever I wanted.

Next time someone insults you, try it. It does work. I used it on my MIL until she finally stopped insulting me. And trust me, that was a miracle. She insulted everyone.

Who had the saddest life in history?

I think the little boy in this photograph takes the cake. His name? Henk Heithuis. And I am warning you ahead of time, his story is absolutely gruesome and terrifying. Heithuis was born in the Netherlands in 1935 and placed in the foster system, to be cared for by Catholic priests. Now priests had a tendency of abusing young children under their care, there have been many such cases… but Heithuis was not like most victims… he was about to go public.

Usually, the abuse was quietly pushed aside, shrugged off, swept under the rug. It’s been that way for centuries. Victims stayed quiet out of shame and fear. Not Henk Heithuis. He decided to make a stand. For himself and for all those others he had known who were abused, molested, raped. So he went to the police, and officially accused the priests of sexual abuse. This was revolutionary, and absolutely unheard of in the 1950s!

What Heithuis had not anticipated, is the absolute cruelty and the far-reaching power of the institution he was about to face. Since he was still legally a minor at the time of the abuse, and at the time he made his accusation, Heithuis was still a ward of the state, unable to make his own decisions, the court argued.

He insisted, however, that he was raped.

The priests then came forward and denied this. Instead, they instead, Heithuis was a homosexual boy who had “seduced the priests”, can you imagine their audacity? The young victim vehemently denied the accusations, maintained he had been raped and that he was, in fact, heterosexual — he even had a girlfriend he hoped to marry as soon as he reached the age of maturity.

The church, however, had quite a bit of influence with the courts. They convinced them that Heithuis was, in fact, homosexual. And in the 1950s, homosexuality was still illegal in the now-so-liberal Netherlands. The treatment consisted of either years in an institution, chemical castration, or physical castration… with Heithuis, no rebuttal was allowed, no second opinion considered and no option given — he was to be castrated immediately. Which he was.

They drugged the teenaged abuse victim, drove him to a clinic down South and strapped him to a table where they surgically gelded him. After the operation they kicked him to the curb… Heithuis was broken.

Mentally.

Physically.

He abandoned his friends and his fiancée and became a sailor. He made it as far as Japan, when he broke down and, when on shore leave, found his way to the Dutch embassy. Here, he told his story to a diplomat who took pity on his fate. He even showed his scars, and explained how his hormones were now out of control, his body no longer felt like his and he was suicidal.

“Please tell my story…” Heithuis insisted, “make notes, remember it. They may come for me. They may kill me.”

Surely it wouldn’t be so bad, his friend, Cornelius Rogge, assured him. Surely they would not have him killed. How could they? But Heithuis was sure of it. Arrangements were made with the shipping company to have him brought back home to his country.

When he returned, Heithuis, helped by his friends who knew his story, once again pressed charges. This time for forcible castration, lying about his sexuality and mental health problems as well as slandering his good name. Still a fiery chap, still refusing to surrender, he wanted justice, he wanted his good name restored.

But in 1958, shortly after pressing charges Henk Heithuis got into a car accident and died on the spot.

The police confiscated all his personal belongings and material provided to them by the deceased. All material was destroyed on the day of his death.

Cat love is so strong

Here is one of my MM youtube videos… It only has 6 views. Why?

What is the one piece of advice you would give to anyone?

Three days ago, a girl messaged me out of nowhere. After a very long time.

I knew her. We had talked before too.

But this time, I sensed something odd. The way she talked…it lacked life.

I asked her if she’s good.

“I am absolutely fine, Pravin!” she replied.

Suppressing my gut feeling, I changed the topic. We talked about each other’s professional activities and also a bit about our personal standings.

I again asked her to open up if she isn’t okay. She again convinced me she was fine.

Then at a point, my inner voice rebounded. Stronger than ever.

“Be honest, are you good?” I asked with finality.

She broke down. Till half an hour she went on elaborating what was going wrong in her life.

I patiently listened.

A person who did her best to convince me she is doing great suddenly came out as someone standing on the verge of death.

Seriousness of her mental status left me in awe. Couldn’t believe it took me three tries before she finally spoke up.

What is the one piece of advice you would give to anyone?

If you are talking to a person, and you feel he is not okay, nudge him to empty his heart to you.

Trust me, by doing this, you won’t intrude into his personal life. You won’t make him feel uncomfortable.

In fact, that’s what he wants. That’s why he is talking to you.

He doesn’t need your love. Or care. Or money. All he wants is to be heard.

Be kind. Listen to him. It only takes this little to make a huge difference.

As a police officer, who were the worst people you came across?

Originally Answered: As a police officer, who was the most truly evil human you ever encountered?

Midnight in Glasgow, two cops got behind a stolen car and gave chase.

The stolen car weaved about the road to prevent the cop car overtaking. It narrowly missed oncoming vehicles, turned without warning, crossed to the opposite carriage and twice mounted the pavement.

Inevitably, it crashed.

Head on into a parked car.

The officers extricated John, a battered, bruised and belligerent 13-year-old boy from the driver’s seat. They found the car to contain stolen goods from various break-ins.

When the cops took John home to his parents, they discovered that he had been missing for four days. His parents had not been looking for him, they hadn’t even reported him missing.

These are the worst people I came across, the parents who take no interest in the children they bring into this world. The people who don’t care about anyone, even their own offspring.

Within a few years, John found himself incarcerated in a Young Offenders Institution.

As part of a rehabilitation program, they took a group of young offenders to an outward-bound camp. Also attending the camp was a group of special-needs children. They gave each young offender the responsibility of looking after one special-needs child.

After a day spent climbing, one leader found John sitting on his bunk crying.

John spent the day with a kid with Down Syndrome.

He walked with him for miles, made him tea on a burner and shared his sandwiches.

When they got back to camp, as the sun settled behind the horizon, his kid climbed on to John’s lap, put his arms around his neck, hugged him tight and told him, “I love you.”

“No-one ever said that to me before,” John said as he sniffed back his tears.

My girlfriend is a PhD student, and her advisor is showing romantic interest in her. How can she address this without losing her 4 years of PhD work?

Given that this is a PhD student, it’s appropriate to talk theory vs. practice.

In theory, she could go to one of the following:

1. Department chair
2. Director of graduate studies for the department (or director of the PhD program)
3. Human resources

In practice, since she has a great deal to lose, I would consider playing a more cautious game. I’m not recommending she do these things instead, but I would recommend considering one or more of them. I’m going to assume her advisor is a “he”, just to simplify writing.

1. Document everything. If it’s all verbal, that’s fine; she should still note everything that’s happened, with approximate dates and a list of anyone present and/or who might have overheard.
2. Collect evidence. Even if it’s her emailing you to complain, that shows a paper trail. Obviously, if there’s email, text, voicemail, etc., from her advisor, even if it’s ambiguous, she should collect it.
3. Find out if the school has an ombudsman. Many schools do. This is a person who has the ability to speak confidentially about anything. Generally speaking, this person is NOT a mandatory reporter, and that shouldn’t apply if he’s simply verbally expressed romantic interest.
4. Find an employment lawyer. This will probably cost a few hundred bucks on retainer. Yes, I know, broke grad student, but seriously, this is a potential legal nightmare.

What would I do? Obviously, I can only speak hypothetically, but I would probably do all of these things, and quickly, then I’d speak to HR as my first official act involving the school (unless the lawyer advised otherwise, but they won’t). My hope would be that all of this is entirely unnecessary and that he would respond appropriately to “no thanks”, but I think he’s already crossing a line by making romantic overtures to his own PhD student. That’s usually against university rules and always unethical.

EDIT: Saeed Doroudiani makes a good additional point: a sufficiently independent, well-run graduate student union (GSU) can help here, too. However, there are few guarantees with a GSU. With an ombudsman, there’s a guarantee of privacy, and with HR, there’s a guarantee that a policy/procedure will be followed (and that should be publicly available). You could lose control if someone in the GSU chose to share out of turn or to go public, and there are no protections for you. A well-run, independent GSU won’t do this, but there are no guarantees that this is what you have. Get some information before talking to them. At best, they can act as effective advocates, but at worst, they can undermine your (already limited) control of the situation. Thanks, Saeed!

EDIT: If you want a good laugh, look through some of the collapsed comments. There are some great ones. One person accused me of being homophobic for stating my assumption that the offending professor is a man. Another discusses strong personalities but is just a heavily coded, “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” Actually, on reflection, I don’t recommend reading them, but they’re amusing to me.

What are some mind-blowing facts related to technology?

This is a keyboard.

You use it to type on a computer.

What happens when you type incorrectly? You press backspace and retype it again.

This is a stenotype.

A typewriter, used by shorthand writers. Like for example, a journalist typing down a speech. He needs accuracy and speed while typing. He can’t have the politician repeat his words again and again. They have specific set of letters from the above set which have specific meaning. They type that.

(That’s a better view of the keyboard.)

What if they make a mistake? They have a key (the middle key in the original typewriter picture) for space. But where’s the backspace?

Now, modern day texting.

Her: What’s your favorite color?

Me: Ted.

Me: *Red. Stupid autocorrect.

What did I do?

I added an asterisk to correct my mistake.

How did the use of asterisk come up?

Well, it’s a practice by shorthand writers to add an asterisk beside the mistake, to indicate it’s a mistake and correct it later on. That’s how the practice of using an asterisk while texting came up.

All your life has been a lie.

You’d be thanking that asterisk right now for saving you from all those embarrassing autocorrects your phone made. 🙂

What was your “I am surrounded by idiots” moment?

I parked in a hospital parking lot, and when I came back to my vehicle, there was this young couple, early twenties having a heated discussion. She wanted him to call a taxi, and drive to a mall and buy a battery. He wanted to call a locksmith. The battery in their key fob was dead, and they couldn’t get the door open. They were getting quite mad at each other, thinking that the others solution was going to cost more and take longer.

I asked them if I could be of assistance, and they both wanted me to explain to the other why their idea sucked.

The guy suggested that maybe I could take the battery out of my fob, and put it in theirs just long enough, for them to open the doors.

I asked to see their key fob, and he handed it to me, thinking I was going to do his suggestion.

I walked to their car, put the key in the lock, and opened the door.

They both were stunned. Saying OMG, how did you do that?

They had never seen a car door opened with a key. I felt really old, and just a little smug.

Why “Nobody” Lives On Australia’s Big Island State: Tasmania

Why? Why? Why?

Heh. Heh. I want to move there!!!!